All posts in 4) Grade 3-5

The Importance of Chores for Kids

If students learn that they can make their own socks (grow their own food, build their own computers, etc.), they also have learned that there isn’t much that they cannot do. In learning of this kind, students self-produce self-esteem. Read more…

Teaching Kids About Money

It’s great that schools are now emphasizing the need to teach financial literacy in the classroom but the issue is training teachers. The problem is that most adults don’t understand the basics of financial investing, yet they overestimate their knowledge. Here’s a way to test your financial investment acumen from The Wall Street Journal: Read more…

On-the-Go Car Tray for Snack and Homework

Designed by dad with 4 on the go kids, LapFit is a set of two stacking trays that keep your kids organized and tidy in the car. The lower tray of the LapFit Todder, is designed for eating in the car. I know, I know … some of you hate kids eating in the car because it’s so messy. But when life moves fast, and you either must feed your child in the car or suffer a meltdown(theirs) and/or migraine(yours as a result of meltdown), you might find the LapFit handy. Read more…

Learn SAT Vocabulary

100,000 vocabulary words seems like an impossible number to master by 8th grade! I found this article to figure out the science behind how kids actually learn that many words (and just in time for the SAT test!). Read more…

Games for Kids About Presidential Election

My 7-year-old son likes board games so he makes me play them with him as his sisters will generally not play board games with or without him. With the upcoming presidential election, I thought it might be a good way to explain our United States slightly convoluted election process to him. Read more…

Sand Under Microscope Looks Like Jewels

My mom sent me that pollination video and I got some great feedback that everyone liked it. So here’s another post via my mom who is nearly 90-years-old! Kudos to her for being active online and sending me great stuff to post! I think she reads my blog too! Read more…

How to Teach Kids to Program in Code

I met Keren on Twitter and asked her to guest post because I have an inkling that my youngest might be a video game developer one day. He has all the accoutrements of an coder. He plays soccer so he should be able to do the hackysack and ultimate frisbee thing. His classical guitar teacher has declared him a rocker and he wants to learn drums next. From a user perspective, he certainly is qualified! He finished all the levels of Angry Birds a year ago and now spends hours on Minecraft among dozens of other games. M.I.T. is near us and they have a summer day camp for kids to learn Scratch. I think my youngest would love that. Read more…

STEM Camp Where Kids Invent

Club Invention is a day camp for kids, boys and girls, and my 7-old-son did it for one week with two friends. They do a two-week stint in Newton, with various stops in other towns in our area, mostly in New England. This is science that you don’t get in school. What exactly is Club Invention? I had no idea from what my son told me every day after school. Even from the extensive newsletters that I received daily, I still was pretty unclear about what they did. In my mind, it had something to do with legos. Read more…

Best Books for Beginning Readers

My pubic library creates a great list for summer reading and this is the list I need for my rising 2nd grader. My library doesn’t like Scholastic beginning chapter book series like Ninjago, Rainbow Fairies,Hiro Quest, or My Weird School. My kids’ first grade teacher does not love them either. Finding really good easy chapter book is tough which is probably why this list is so short. It’s culled from mostly newly published books. Read more…